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TYPICAL 
JiMERlCANS 



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ADDRESS AT AHNVAL BANQUET OF 

Minnesota Commandery 
Military Order rLLoyalLegion 

MIMNEJtPOLIS, MIMMESOTJl. FEBRUJtRY 12th, I9OI 



IBYZ 



Capt. Henry Ji. Castle, U. S. V. 



VMST COMM^MDER 






Gift 

Publishw 

Au5 s^ 



Typical Americans 



Two Colossal Figures in our Nation's Masterful 
Epochs, each an Jtpotheosis of the Jtverage Man 
jS^ The Twentieth Century's Jtverage Jlmerican the 
Flower of Christian Civilization ^ £/ £/ j0 j0^ 

^^ 

To develop a high average in man is the noblest 
work of civilization. 

The advancement of a race is only real when it 
reaches all social strata, pervading the classes and 
the masses, steadily elevating, energizing, fructifying 
the entire population. 

The capacity of a people to evolve constantly im- 
proving types of humanity is the final test of great- 
ness. That nation will win supremacy which has the 
most highly developed average man and makes of him 
an inspiring citizen. The average man has not, until 
recently, been a factor in the world ; nowhere to-day 
is he so important a factor as in our own proud and 
happy land. He has ceased to make an obtuse angle 
of himself before rank and privilege; he has begun to 
inhale fresh ozone of the brand that stiffens spines; 
he has learned that the constitution always follows the 
flag sooner or later — and he believes in both. 

Clasped in the embrace of shining centuries that 
gave model and masterpiece of art, poetry, philosophy, 
laws and eloquence, lie the annals of queenly Athens 
and exultant Rome. But viewed from our long focal 
distance how provincial, how isolated, how evanescent. 
The "higher classes" were luxurious, but the common 
people had fewer comforts than the beasts that perish. 
Freedom and civilization starved because they thrust 



no rootlets into the popular intellect. Even the tid- 
ings of those glories and achievements scarcely reached 
beyond the walls of cities which girt the IMediterran- 
ean like a constellation. 

That progress only is genuine which reaches and 
illumines mankind in general — the average man. Civ- 
ilizations of the past, rich as they were in specific feat- 
ures, were local ; their blessings touched only the small- 
est circles. Two hundred years elapsed before the 
common people of Europe knew that America had been 
discovered. Knowledge lay in a state of arrested in- 
cubation. Ages rolled on, while simple inventions 
slowly broke their way through crusts of ignorance 
to the hand and home of the toiler. 

All this is changed. While kings have shriveled 
and potentates have shrunken mankind has expanded. 
Some things are wrong and rotten still, for civiliza- 
tion, like beauty, is often only paint-deep. But the 
average man in physical and intellectual vigor, in 
culture and character has throughout Christendom 
been wondrously exalted. 

Our people enjoy their full allotment of this ex- 
altation. Elsewhere development and aspiration are 
militant, here they are triumphant — permeated with 
patriotic impulse, and dominated by an optimistic Am- 
ericanism. This impulse has extended our sphere of 
influence until it reaches from Ursa Major to the plane 
of the ecliptic; it has made aurora borealis a familiar 
domestic product and narrowed the Pacific Ocean into 
an American Lake. 

The average American is the highest type the world 
now holds or ever has seen. So long as we maintain 
this pre-eminence we can trust ourselves to lead in the 
march of history. 

A sublime faith in our country and our countrymen 
has directed the policies of the last three memorable 
years. It guided and inspired our voiceless comrade, 
companion and friend, the ideal American statesman, 



the pride of our commonwealth, a pillar of the nation, 
of whose wondrous deeds we can now only speak from 
the depths of a bleeding affection. His every heart- 
beat throbbed with this courageous confidence. It 
led his unfaltering steps up the imperial heights of 
destiny as the shepherds of old were led by the rad- 
iance of Bethlehem's beckoning star. 

A crowning beneficence of our position, the uner- 
ring prophecy of a hopeful future, is the significant 
fact that from the ranks of our average men, from 
the mass of our intelligent citizenship, every crisis 
calls forth leaders equal to the heaviest demand, — 
built up by the moulding hand of free institutions, 
stalwart and heroic, formed for the supreme emer-^ 
gency. We have discarded the pauper-made pedigrees 
of Europe. From the homes of the people, from con- 
ditions even less favorable than the lot of the average 
men of their time, have sprung the consummate fig- 
ures of our nation's annals, our two transcendent typi- 
cal Americans. 

The luminous career of one spanned all the decades 
of the eighteenth centur}^ — the other's splendid deeds 
have made the nineteenth century memorable, and the 
day we here celebrate sacred to patriotism forever. 
Each was an august embodiment of the Republic ; into 
every thread of its fabric their lives are woven, on 
every flutter of its flag their genius shines. 

Our colonial and revolutionary eras, with the form- 
ative years of the federal government glisten with il- 
lustrious names all more than worthy the deathless 
fame so grandly won. But it is not on the story of 
Adams or Hamilton or Jefferson or Pickering or Mad- 
ison or Jay or Putnam we will dwell to-night. Nor 
even, on that of immortal Washington, of whom our 
speech can be clothed only in g-arments of profound- 
est reverence — unsullied be his renown on the tongues 
of men and angels until time shall be no more ! 

Above any or all of these in wealth of intellect, 



versatility of attainment and achievement, effective 
civic service, was the statesman, diplomat, inventor, 
philosopher, patriot, printer, the original Yankee, the 
first Typical American, Benjamin Franklin. 

Washington, soldier and hero, the wealthiest citi- 
zen of the colonies, aristocratic and justly proud, a 
Virginian of the third generation, while American in 
patriotic impulse, remained to the last in habit, tastes 
and texture an unmistakable Englishman. Franklin) 
cradled in penury, the son of an immigrant, was in 
every throb and fiber and tissue an unadulterated Am- 
erican. 

Born at Boston in 1706, Franklin at the age of 
Twelve had fortunately escaped the vocation of holy 
orders chosen by his parents, where he would have 
been a misfit of saddest ray serene; had finished his 
brief experience at school ; had served two years with 
his father as a candle maker and was finally appren- 
ticed to the trade and mystery of printing. 

Franklin at Eighteen had become prematurely a 
journeyman in his craft; had secured employment in 
Philadelphia, and misled by a scheming patron made 
a fruitless voyage to London, which however, paved 
the way to future service abroad, of incomparable value 
to his country and mankind. 

Franklin at Twenty-three, having spent two years 
in London, was established in Philadelphia as an edi- 
tor and publisher, launched upon a career of activity 
and civic usefulness, which had it never extended be- 
yond the city's boundaries would have commanded 
lasting remembrance. 

Franklin at Thirty-five was author, inventor, scien- 
tist, militia officer, philosopher, founder of academies 
and libraries, public-spirited champion of all rational 
enterprises for the general good. He was in spite of 
all thrifty and acquisitive, a successful business man, 
not one of the class wherein vanity is a unit prefixed to 
the ciphers of ignorance. He worked and taught; a 



whole curriculum of natural philosophy stands em- 
bodied in his inventions ; an epitome of political econ- 
omy lies embedded in his proverbs. 

Franklin at Forty-six was Postmaster General of 
the colonies, having during fifteen years' previous ex- 
perience as Postmaster of the city made Philadelphia 
the center of the infant colonial system. In this emi-; 
nently practical position his creative faculty found full 
employment and he laid the foundation for that mar- 
velously efficient service which has grown to be the 
greatest business enterprise in the world, governmen- 
tal or corporate, with total financial transactions for 
the current year of seven hundred and fifty million 
dollars. 

At Forty-eight he was the leading spirit in a con- 
vention of the colonies at Albany where he submitted 
the plan for a federal union; it was premature and 
failed of acceptance, but was the first suggestion toward 
united effort and the germ of the confederation. At 
Forty-nine he was Quartermaster General of Brad- 
dock's army; at his own expense, not reimbursed for 
many years, he supplied the transportation for that 
ill-fated expedition. 

At Fifty-one Franklin was sent to England to re- 
present Pennsylvania before the Privy Council, where 
he remained eighteen years. Other colonies joined in 
the commission until he became practically the ambas-; 
sador of America to the court and parliament and peo- 
ple of Great Britian. 

At Sixty, while serving in this capacity he wrought 
one of his numerous miracles of useful achievement. 
He stood before the House of Commons, sitting in 
Committee of the Whole, to show cause why the Stamp 
Act should be repealed. A series of one hundred 
seventy- four prepared interrogatories were propounded 
in rapid succession and to each he made complete ans- 
wer, without hesitation or evasion. They were cun- 
ningly devised to entrap him, but his frank, intelli- 



gent replies confounded his opponents and secured tlie 
repeal. His collected answers formed a text book of 
the claims and hopes of his countrymen, were trans- 
lated into all European languages and made possible 
that sympathy which bore tangible fruit during the 
revolution. 

Franklin at Seventy returned to America arriving 
May 5, 1775, just as the war began. He had earned 
repose, but there was none for him, while manifest 
destiny was casting a varied assortment of admiring 
glances in his direction. During the next sixteen 
months he performed with skill and credit the duties 
of the following high official positions, most of them 
held simultaneously and continuously : 

1. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Assem- 
bly and chairman of the committee of safety — virtual- 
ly Governor of the Colony. 

2. He was President of the Pennsylvania Consti- 
tutional Convention. 

3. He was a member of the Continental Congress, 
which, it will be remembered, exercised through its 
committees, all executive functions of the provisional 
government. 

4. He was chairman of the committee on military 
supplies, — virtually Secretary of War, 

5. He was chairman of the committee on corres- 
pondence and treaties with foreign nations, — virtual- 
ly Secretary of State. 

6. He was head of the Postal Establishment, with 
the responsibility for its reorganization and extension 
— actually Postmaster General. 

7. He was head of the Department of Indian Af- 
fairs, with its innumerable complications and perplexi- 
ties — ^practically Secretary of the Interior. 

8. He was chairman of a commission which vis- 
ited Washington's disintegrating militia force at Cam- 
bridge, and devised plans for its organization and 
maintenance as a continental army. 



9- He was chairman of a commission: which vis- 
ited Canada hoping to secure co-operation, but failed 
to find the combination to that true and tried safety- 
vault for the storage of ancient traditions. 

10. He was chairman of a commission which vis- 
ited Lord Howe at New York City, to consider propo- 
sitions for peace. 

11. He was a member of the committee which 
drafted the Declaration of Independence, all the lead- 
ing features of which bear the impress of his com- 
manding endowments. 

12. He was a ready debator of all critical ques- 
tions under discussion and a voluminous writer for the 
press. 

In the radiant chronicles of antiquity where can 
be read the record of such unwearied effort on so 
broad and high a plane of usefulness? What old man 
industrious ever gave s'uch busy months of tireless de- 
votion to his country? What eminent American, 
young or old, past or present, living or dead, has more 
conclusive title to our ceaseless gratitude ? 

Franklin at Seventy-two sailed for France where 
he spent five laborious years negotiating treaties and 
placing loans which brought thousands of soldiers and 
millions of dollars to the aid of our ragged, retreating,- 
starving patriots. Was ever such diplomatic mar^vel 
accomplished among the children of men as that which 
brought jewelled and cultured Europe into alliance 
with the home-spun insurgents of uncouth America? 
Without that aid the struggle must have ended in rank 
and wretched failure. 

Franklin at Seventy-seven negotiated with Great 
Britain the treaty of peace and in the liberality of its 
terms gained another signal diplomatic triumph. 
Grandly had he earned the tribute framed in classic 
Latin : "He wrested thunderbolts from Jove and the 
scepter from tyrants." 

Franklin at Seventy-nine returned to his native 



land, and entered upon three years of labor as Governor 
of Pennsylvania. He never marched as drum major 
in a parade of his own exploits, but he toiled untir- 
ingly, incessantly, successfully. 

Franklin at Eighty-one was a member of the con- 
vention which framed the Constitution of the United 
States and gave to that great service the ripe fruitage 
of his meditation and experience. With many of his 
colleagues their share in formulating this peerless in- 
strument was a sole, sufficient title to distinction; to 
him, full of years, of honors and of beneficient works 
it was but a culminating claim to the gratitude of fu- 
turity. 

He died at the age of Eighty- four, having furnished 
the first striking example of the possibilities which lie 
in an unshackled equality of opportunity. His phenom- 
enal life-work is not yet appreciated, as compared with 
shoals of lesser men who have been elaborately bulle- 
tin-boarded. Outside of Philadelphia I have seen but 
two public memorials in his honor, a statue in New 
York and another in Washington, both paid for by 
printers. And some insipid descendants of intrepid 
sires, with brain tissues hovering unclassified between 
mollusk and protoplasm, question the right of hisv 
posterity to membership in the Daughters of the Rev- 
olution ! 

Benjamin Franklin was the splendid Typical Am- 
erican of the eighteenth century, conspicuous in a mas- 
terful epoch which curtained the armament of history 
with imperial splendors. Had this nation produced 
none worthy to stand beside him, he alone would have 
superbly vindicated the type and its potentialities. But 
the nineteenth century came, bringing new vicissi- 
tudes, environments, requirements. The nineteenth 
century brought its own crisis and it likewise brought 
a man for the crisis — Abraham Lincoln. 

He was the second distinctive, colossal. Typical 
American. Genius is common sense intensified ; a Typ- 



10 



ical American is an average man expanded and crystal- 
lized. As to some features of character and career 
Franklin and Lincoln were strikingly similar, yet the 
differences were marked and decisive. Each was a 
superlative amonj^ his fellows, an apotheosis of the 
average man. Each was a born child of the people, 
raised by self culture to a stature unsurpassed among 
mortals. Each was a man of the people without a 
trace of demagoguery. Each was framed for his high 
calling by the imperious mandate of nature and sur- 
roundings; both were in every trait and tendency and 
texture unquestionably American. Their endowments 
were essentially practical and real, but with finest back- 
grounds of the ideal and full equipment for exalted 
trust. That they were recognized and trusted and 
exalted is a crowning vindication of Republicanism. 

Abraham Lincoln was born in the State of Ken- 
tucky in 1809, less than twenty years after Franklin 
died. He was of obscure ancestry and was cradled 
amid the rudest rusticities of life on a raw frontier. 
The sum total of his attendance at school was less 
than twelve months. Much of his childhood was spent 
in a cabin of logs, with no floor or door or window, 
without a stove or furniture or utensil more elabor- 
ate than a kettle, a skillet and a bench. 

Lincoln as a Youth, untrained in polite society, 
clad in coarsest, most meagre garments, tow trousers 
fifteen inches too short, coon skin cap, bare feet, face 
browned from exposure and hand calloused with toil, 
was an unpromising boulder out of which to carve the 
conventional hero. But strength of body and mind 
dwelt in him, which among his compeers brought h 
primacy, grateful, perhaps, as his later honors. He 
was first in all athletic games ; he was leader in race 
and wrestle; more than all he owned half a dozen 
books, read them with avidity, absorbed them com- 
pletely and built his mental structure around them. 
Reading Aesop's Fables by the light from a fire place 



was his recreation, his theater, opera, and lecture 
rohed into one. He grew to be a backwoods prodigy in 
knowledge as in feats of strength and agility. 

Lincoln as a Farmer, a Boatman and a Clerk 
brought his early manhood into relation with varied ele- 
ments of useful activity. His faculties were quick- 
ened, his horizon was widened, his experiences were 
multiplied and practical information was garnered for 
later years. At New Orleans he saw the cruelties of 
human slavery and where the atmosphere was filled 
with the suffocating fumes of its apologists, he reg- 
istered a holy vow to smite it always and smite it 
hard. 

Lincoln as a Soldier served one short eventless 
campaign in the Blackhawk war of 1831, stimulating 
his appreciation of discipline and strengthening, as 
captain of a company of fellow townsmen, his attri- 
butes of leadership. 

Lincoln the Legislator helped to frame the codes 
he was destined so ably to expound, and contributed to 
the earliest development of resources which have 
since made his adopted State, imperial Illinois, the third 
commonwealth of the Union. He did not serve at a 
period when the railroad magnate feels obliged to own 
and operate two or more State Legislatures as a feature 
of his system, but in that day of relatively small things 
he made a creditable record. 

Lincoln the Lawyer was noted for his adherence 
to highest conceptions of the dignity of his chosen pro- 
fession. He held it to be the duty of the bar to aid 
the court in administering justice. Lucid argument, 
even grace of diction and oratory were his instruments 
in presenting the law and facts of each case for the 
better information of judge and jury. His logical 
power, merciless as the erosion of a glacier, was never 
consciously used to mislead the one; his gifts of im- 
passioned eloquenece were not employed to befog or 
deceive the other. He never sought to beguile men 



12 



into the treatment of an incurable disease with an in-< 
falhble remedy. He rose to merited eminence in reg- 
ular practice before courts presided over by the ablest 
jurists. He established a reputation for capacity, 
probity, and learning, upon which rests no stain of 
unfaithfulness to clients or treachery to truth. 

Lincoln the Patriot nursed in the growth of anti- 
slavery agitation ; aroused by its appeals ; toss'ed in 
its storms and fired by the lightnings of its rage, be- 
came an active champion of the nation's awakening 
conscience, voiced in a swelling clamor for free press, 
free speech, free soil, free men. A new evangel came 
to stir men's souls ; he was its early apostle ; he final- 
ly became its prophet, seer and sage, its martyr and 
its canonized hero. As has been truly said, he com- 
bined the faith of Abraham, the leadership of Moses, 
the courage of Leonidas, the mental vigor of Paul, 
the integrity of Cromwell and the patriotism of Wash- 
ington. That patriotism was more than a sentiment 
— it was an animating, overmastering spiritual posses- 
sion. From him and his co-laborers it flowed out into 
the souls of their countrymen until the mighty North 
was leavened with their spirit and inspired by their 
zeal. 

Lincoln the Leader, was evolved by natural selec- 
tion. From inconspicuous beginnings he steadily grew 
to be the acclaimed tribune of the people. By the force 
of his ability and character he embodied all the condi- 
tions around him, until he became an incarnation of 
their loftiest aims. Rugged and massive he was^ 
surely not fair and smooth to look upon, yet with an 
imposing personality as the future will idealize him. 
His trivalties of speech masked profundity of thought 
and inflexible decision. Rugged, massive and impos- 
ing he was, but not inert. There were internal fires 
to fuse this ruggedness; there was an expansive soul 
that elevated this massiveness and made it majestic. 
His leadership was not of the larynx and lungs variety, 

13 



ever ready to clothe itself in asbestos and umpire the 
conflagration of a planet; it was neither rant nor 
malevolence nor incendiarism. It was conservatism 
personified, steadiness energized, determination sub- 
limated. 

Lincoln the Orator displayed intellectual gifts of 
the highest range. His collected addresses and State 
papers form a classic which has no superior in our 
prolific language. They are the clear flowing utter- 
ances of an affluent mind, warmed by the sanctifying 
impulse of profound conviction. The inimitable 
words at Gettysburg have given to that hallowed 
ground increased sanctity as a shrine of pilgrimage 
for Earth's rejoicing children. 

Lincoln the President, central figure of Time's 
most awful tragedy, stepped forth with modest manli- 
ness, solemly assumed his burden and bore it royally, 
yet meekly until he died. Confronted with perils and 
problems unprecedented, he stood on the shifting 
quicksands of a disintegrating government, a rustic 
politician out of the West, with no clientage even 
among his party associates. He was compassed 
about with perplexities innumerable. His cabinet 
was strange and discordant, its members distrustful 
of him and of each other ; the treasury was empty and 
the public credit paralyzed. Foreign nations were 
openly hostile; domestic traitors infested every exec- 
utive department, polluted the courts and distracted 
congress. He rose to the tremendous responsibility. 
He was tactful and discreet; always growing; always 
moving with a self-sufiicing self-reliance that is mod- 
esty enthroned. He met every emergency as it came 
and controlled it. He guided diplomacy, finance, and 
internal policies. Friends abandoned him; political 
conspirators plotted his overthrow, but he was firm, 
patient, consistent, neither speaking thoughtlessly nor 
acting with rashness. In every branch of statesman- 
ship he was easily master of his colleagues and the 



occasion. He piloted the ark of man's last hope 
through all menacing breakers until it anchored safely 
in the haven of deliverance. 

Lincoln the Commander, unversed in military lore, 
speedily disclosed instincts of generalship and genius 
for command. War environed him with swift, re- 
morseless fury; his communications were cut off and 
his capital beleaguered; forts and shipyards had been 
treacherously surrendered ; arms had been stolen and 
vessels scattered ; trusted officers of the army and navy 
forswore their allegiance and deserted to the foe. 
From the mines and forests navies were created ; from 
the farms and schools and workshops, enormous arm- 
ies were drawn. Leaders were evolved, campaigns 
were planned, battles were fought and unsurpassed 
victories won. The soldiers of the Union, under his 
unrelaxing guidance, captured forts and armies, sea- 
ports and citadels and capitals, senates and cabinets 
and presidents; they conquered States, crushed rebel- 
lion and built around the rescued nation an impreg- 
nable rampart of freedom. 

Lincoln the Emancipator, appeals most vividly to 
the imaginations of men. Slavery's doom had been 
runsf on the celestial chimes and written on the aroused 

• • • r 

conscience as well as on the quickened mtelligence of 
mankind. It was repugnant to all the attributes of 
our advancing civilization. A generation had grown 
up to which its atrocities were intolerable. Orator 
and statesman; novelist and poet; morality and Chris- 
tianity; invention and advancement — ekch declaimed 
against it with resistless strength. All influences 
spoke with Lincoln's voice and struck with his reso- 
lute arm. He seemed slow as he led public opinion 
while marching abreast with it but he struck hard. 
In August, 1862, a zealous war-governor telegraphed: 
"Hurl the thunderbolt of Emancipation and Illinois 
will again leap like a flaming giant into the fight." 
The characteristic reply was flashed back : "Richard, 
possess thou thy soul in patience; stand by and see 



15 



the salvation of the Lord." One month later the 
thunderbolt was hurled. Loyal Illinois had mean- 
while sent seventy new regiments to the front ; a great 
battle had been gained; the time was ripe and Lincoln 
was ready. 

Lincoln the Devout, was the self-confessed instru- 
ment of an irresistible, over-ruling power. His relig- 
ion was neither that of noisy pretence, ever audible to 
the naked ear, nor of pure formalism, mere pomp and 
circumstance, signifying nothing. It was a isober, 
indwelling faith ; a silent, introspective veneration. 
In his countenance the gloom of nature, the hardship 
of early struggles, the agony of unuttered sorrows and 
remors,eless pressure of official care, had chiseled their 
pathetic furrows. But through them gleamed the 
light of a dimless sincerity. He was supremely honest. 
Honesty is the best policy when the amount involved 
is small — but it is the best principle always and every- 
where. Lincoln was honest from principle. He was the 
"honest old Abe" of admiring contemporaries; his 
was the inarticulate religion of a reverent, contrite 
soul. 

Lincoln the Martyr, walked in the path which duty 
had marked for his weary, aching steps, until, from 
under the assassin's hand, his labor done, his honors 
gained, God called and crowned him. He had a 
recompense in bringing to his country more perfect 
liberty and brighter human hopes. Then his blood 
mingled with that of scores of thousands of nameless 
youthful victims to form the priceless libation in which 
the finger of the Almig-hty baptized mankind to a new 
birth of freedom immaculate and imperishable 

Oh ! Lincoln of to-day, illustrious, immortal ! How 
superbly he looms, as with long arms folded in statu- 
esque dignity, he calmly fronts the scrutiny of the 
ages. He is the world's invincible prophecy of opti- 
mism, lifted already far above kings and conquerers 
of all the past, to matchless eminence and unrivaled 
splendor. 



And Lincoln of the better days to come! He will 
stand as the embodiment of his time, his transfigured 
character, like a shining sphere of crystal, embosom- 
ing the heart and kernel of the cause he typified. And 
with him the disciples of that sacred cause, the heroic 
living and the sainted dead, admonish us to assume 
their task and complete their triumphs. Lincoln will 
sweep and swing through the chronicles of futurity, 
and into his grandeur will at last be merged all the 
service and sacrifice that contributed to make his era 
conspicuous. He wrought mightily, he toiled terribly, 
but he was grandly and loyally upheld. Long and 
lustrous. is the battle- roll of those who smote and stood 
and held the hope of unborn millions amid the tem- 
pests of a thousand flaming fields. From highest to 
lowest they were soldiers of the flag — one in object 
and one in glory. The legacy of their deeds is the 
priceless possession of America's successive genera- 
tions. Let it suffice that all the blood and tears and 
prayers of the bitter contest are fused in Heaven's 
alembic into one imperishable chrysolite, and fixed in 
the zenith of the Republic's deathless diadem. 

If there be any who question the sacredness of 
Lincoln's cause or the completeness of its victory, the 
survivors of that struggle may confidently appeal to 
the impartial verdict of the time to come. Our com- 
rades did not die in vain. All of value that the twen- 
tieth century inherits is the purchase of their blood; 
the Grand Army of the Republic and the Loyal Legion 
are custodians of their stainless memory. An enlight- 
ened patriotism in the South already rejoices that its 
mistaken endeavoj.- was Divinely thwarted. Shoulder 
to shoulder, in a later war, our sons marched with the 
sons of Confederates under the flag we mercifully 
saved for them, and fought for the land we made 
worth defending. Side by side their descendants and 
ours will standr as they work out the mysteries of an 
unfolding future and contribute to the grandeur of 
an evolving destiny. 



17 



Wider visions of demand and opportunity are 
opening before us which will bring new vicissitudes. 
and emergencies. From their broadening fields of 
action the predestined leader will be called, and again 
will be vindicated the dignity and divinity of the av- 
erage man. The average American of the twentieth 
century will be the consummate flower of Christian 
civilization. His control of new and complicated 
physical forces, yielding a vast increment of facilities 
for production and distribution, suggest necessary 
augmentations of his outlook and aggrandizement of 
his enterprise. 

True conservatism is deeply rooted in the eternal 
verities. But there is a false conservatism, sorely 
addicted to the dry-rot habit, which believes headache 
is caused by a fermentation of new ideas in the brain. 
This conversatism, ultra-refined and -over-comfort- 
able, goes into retreat, rout and preposterous panic 
when it is proposed to blaze a pathway into unexplored 
domains, or even to walk bravely in the footsteps of 
the mighty dead. The twentieth century American 
will discard the pessimism that legislates for an open 
season of misery twelve months in the year, demands 
a plebiscite of Malays and splits hairs over the consent 
of the governed. He will ignore the preachers and 
breeders of calamity who rejoice with retroactive glee 
in multiplications of woe and are happy only when 
their fellow mortals are submerged in overwhelming 
billows of disaster and despair. 

There is abundant ground for faith in a permanenl^ 
and sovereign 'force running through all the processes 
of our national growth that will meet the exigencies 
of coming ^-ears. The optimism of Franklin, the sad 
stern hopefulness of Lincoln enfolded this faith as 
a perpetual benediction. That force will go on, age 
after age, building statlier mansions, far beyond our 
past vision and present thought. It will fashion for 
the average American type men and women nobler 
than the world has ever seen, moulding and blending 



18 



from all sections a cultivated, homogeneous race; 
rich, inventive, productive, materialistic beyond the 
dream of prophet or hope of sage, yet endowed with 
conscience, morals and spiritual attributes which are 
the only pledge against decay. 

That optimism which believes in one's country 
right or wrong, with the determination that if right 
it shall be kept right, and if wrong it shall be made 
right, is the faith in which Franklin and Lincoln 
wrought, to which we, their legatees, must be dedi- 
cated. 

Into what a vast amphitheatre for the exercise of 
all his powers has the twentieth century American 
been placed by recent world-embracing events — how 
miraculously the sphere has been broadened wherein 
his activities and aspirations may be strenously ex- 
erted. There are in current tendencies, at home and 
abroad, ample incentives for the enlargment of every 
human energy. Since Lincoln died civilized nations 
have manifested irresistable movements toward a con- 
centration of governmental power in the interest of 
personal liberty. Areas have expanded and govern- 
ments have grown stronger but the people are every- 
where more free. To-day there are visible movements 
toward a concentration of the resources of capital for 
the devolopment of industry, the extension of com- 
merce and the advancement of individual prosperity. 
Pessimism saw no good in the one tendency and sees 
only evil in the other, but the destiny-thwarter, though 
voiced like the letting go of air brakes, has small suc- 
cess against the inevitable. Oppressions and distress 
accompany such processes ; curbs and restraints must 
be devised, and new powers invoked to meet unprece- 
dented emergencies ; but if benefit does not finally re- 
sult, all teachings of history are false and maxims of 
philosophy delusive. 

We can hazard no detailed predictions ; we can pass 
no judgment; conditions are not ready for intelligent 
measurement. The kaleidoscope of events shifts with 

19 



strange and awful suddeness; we cannot forecast poli- 
cies even for the day after to-morrow. We can 
rely on the ingrained, salutary conservatism of our 
progressive people to prevent too rapid advancement, 
for all the tendencies of our progress are beneficent, 
and God over all reigneth forever. The ver}^ life and 
essence of that beneficent progress have saturated our 
entire organism; we will advance with safety toward 
the goal of prosperity and happiness for three hundred 
millions of twentieth century Americans. 

Who will be the Typical American of the twenti- 
eth century? We cannot tell. We only know that 
he will not spring from the emasculated and inverte- 
brate classes, cultured beyond the limitations of their 
intellect and ashamed of the country where they con- 
descended to be born. And this we steadfastly be- 
lieve — that the examples of Franklin and Lincoln are 
not lost, nor has the power of reproducing their like 
from the ranks of its plain average citizenship, per- 
ished in the land they established and regenerated. 
War, we may hope, is nearly obsolete — it has be- 
come largely a matter of mechanical skill and finance, 
modified by woman's prerogative to register shrill, ef- 
fective expostulations against exposure and suffering. 
But there are perils and problems to be encountered 
still. 

Let us banish distrust and eliminate pessimism — ' 
here in the golden heart of the continent must be the 
nurturing home of Hope; amid the amplitude and 
prodigality of this fresh national life there is no room 
for hideous dolor and highly oxygenated phases of 
despair. 

The gifted charlatan whose view is bounded by the 
roofs of his little college town on the country's Eastern 
water-front is too much in evidence in that region. 
He is profoundly convinced that laws can be framed 
and constitutions interpreted only by a small circle of 
Latin experts with impaired digestion. He is shelled 



20 



in a dwarfing, withering isolation. He is still content 
to pose as a European lay figure, and has only the 
faintest conception of the real spirit, functions and 
resources of the Republic. He will profit by a patient 
search for the star of empire. 

Here in the breezy and buoyant new Northwest; 
on her teeming and boundless prairies; by the banks 
of her amazing rivers; in the midst of her million- 
acred harvests — here can the fullest inspiration of our 
national magnificence be caught and assimilated. This 
favored region of which Franklin never heard and 
which Lincoln but dimly discerned, is the nursery of 
high impulse, tireless activity and unconquerable trust. 

Here is the New England of to-morrow, the Yan- 
kee land of the twentieth century! New York may 
cultivate snobs and interbreed social degenerates to 
the limit; Boston provincialism may gnaw a file and 
mumble well-modulated sneers through broken teeth 
— Minneapolis will be the modern Athens; the ulti- 
mate American metropolis may rise and reign resplend- 
ent on the shores of Puget Sound. Six States of the 
upper Mississippi valley, lying between the great lakes 
and the foot hills have all pre-requisites of exuberant 
soil, healthful climate, vigorous physical and intellect- 
ual races, to build up the model commonwealths of 
this free empire and develop the dominating population 
of the contient. He conquers in peace and war who 
fights with the North wind at his back. Favorable 
climatic conditions will here mould a mixture of the 
globe's premier races into an all-conquering combina- 
tion of strength, intelligence and energy. 

The New England of the past is stamped on all 
the elements of our progress. Its six craggy, sterile, 
noble States have sent their sons and daughters, their 
laws, their piety, their tracts, prints, codfish, and col- 
lege yells into the remotest corners of the Union and 
left them there as abiding, welcome institutions. The 
New England of the future with broader gauge and 



larger resource will continue in unstinted flow the nec- 
essary output of strenuous, aggressive, average Am- 
ericans. 

Franklin, born in Massachusetts was the original, 
characteristic, legitimate Yankee; Lincoln, born near 
the Ohio river was reviled and lampooned as the Yan- 
kee President. The term carries no stigma now and 
the sons of the new Northwest will wear it as their 
patent of nobility. Until art has learned to gild re- 
fined gold or tint the rose, or suggest new touches of 
beauty for our star-flowered flag, etymology will vain- 
ly seek a more welcome designation. 

We may confidently leave America of the twentieth 
century in the hands of her average citizens. When a 
crisis conies', from their ranks will step out the Typ- 
ical American, with an equipment we can but darkly 
imagine, to face the responsibilities we cannot possibly 
foresee. Beyond that we seek not to penetrate the veil. 
Perhaps the onrolling ages will shrivel our annals to 
a dot on history's page; fresher splendors may throw 
our epoch into blank, unbroken shadow ; Saxon speech 
may linger only on the tongues of learned and listless 
aliens — even then the names of Franklin and Lincoln 
will survive, to make luminous the centuries which gave 
them birth and preserve the traditions of popular free- 
dom in the majesty of their consecrated character. 

We read in the legends of Scotland that when Rob- 
ert Bruce passed away, his heart was preserved in a 
golden urn, which was carried as a standard in the 
van of her marching hosts. When the focus of a bat- 
tle was reached the standard was advanced and the 
charging clansmen lifted their thrilling war cry: 
"Lead on, great heart of Bruce, — we come, we come !" 

In the gladder, grander days that lie before us. 
whether the conflict be in war or peace, the con- 
quering battalions of ultimate America will in like 
manner invoke inspiration of their thronging pantheon 
of heroes: "Lead on, exalted spirit of Washington 



and Greene and Putnam; lead on sacred memory of 
Grant and SJierman and Stanton and Logan; lead on 
priceless example of Lawton and Dewey and Davis 
and McKinley — Lead on great brain of Franklin — 
Lead on great soul of Lincoln — We come! We 
come ! We come !" 



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